This invention relates to dead reckoning navigation instruments, and in particular to the type that is manually operated. Dead reckoning concerns the applications of elapsed time, speed and direction to determine current position relative to initial position. Fully automatic and semiautomatic instruments for dead reckoning are available in many forms, particularly with the advent of low cost computers and pocket calculators. However, these automated instruments normally do not provide the vast amount of useful navigation information that appears on navigation charts, such as water depth at low tide. General purpose devices, such as grease pencils, dividers, protractors and parallel rules, currently are used with the navigation chart to perform the dead reckoning operation. The user selects and draws a course-line on the navigation chart, using lead or grease pencil. From this line, via parallel rules, moves are made across the chart to a fixed compass-rose where the specific compass course to steer is determined to agree with the aforementioned course line direction. Using dividers and mileage or latitude scales on the chart as reference, the course-line is marked at intervals to create an ad hoc distance scale. With various one, two or three arm protractors the scales are already supplied on one or more of the "arm" portions. More than one arm with such a protractor facilitates determining position by means of the angle(s) between the craft and two or three fixed visually sighted objects. Two and three arm protractors facilitate position fixing, but not dead reckoning per se. Furthermore, these conventional general purpose elements, and procedures for their use, are not practical in many environmental conditions, and under many user workload situations.